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Tuning
This is a general community written tuning guide to aggregate all the tunable Satsuma parts and give advice on best performing settings Many of the vehicle components can be modified to increase performance or economy of the Satsuma. Some tuning jobs can be easily done by the player, others require more patience and skill. Also, some tuning jobs can be done by Fleetari, for a price. Be warned, incorrectly tuning your Satsuma can cause damage to your dignity and to the condition of your components. Like most activities in the game, it is advised to make a save before you begin to tinker with your precious Satsuma. The Satsuma can be specifically tuned to suit the preferred drive style of the player. Though a car tuned for drag racing will not perform well at rallying, and a car tuned for rallying will not perform well on overall speed. Tunable and modifiable components *All three carburettors, stock, twin and racing. *Alternator belt. *Distributor. *Camshaft. *Rocker shaft. *Tachometer. *Gear ratio. *N2O Kit. Alternator belt The alternator belt must be adjusted correctly, otherwise, it may come loose or snap, causing you to buy another one from Teimo's shop. The belt can be adjusted by untightening the screw and using the scroll wheel, moving the alternator left (to loosen) and right (to tighten). If the belt is too loose, it will make a horrible "whirring" squeak. The best way to tune it is to turn on the engine and move the alternator slowly, tick by tick, to the right, until the "whirring" noise cannot be heard any longer. Once done, tighten the belt back up with the screw. Another quick way to tune the alternator belt is to tighten it fully, then loosen it two notches on the scroll wheel. This sets it as loose as the belt can be without squealing/whirring. The tightness of the belt will not actually affect performance, but the best tightness is just after you can't hear the whirring anymore as this will give the belt the longest lifespan. The belt will eventually break anyway, but that cannot be avoided. Stock and Twin Carburettors Both the stock and twin carburettors are tuned in the same way. It is advised to use the A/F ratio gauge which can be bought from the Parts catalog as this will greatly increase the ease of tuning. Tighten and loosen the tuning screw to adjust the A/F ratio, these are seperate screws from the bolts holding it on the engine, found near the carborator bridge. Too high or too low, and your car may stall and make a 'bang' noise. You will see black or blue smoke indicating your A/F is bad. 13.1 is generally the best agreed value for absolute performance, as it will provide better low-end torque and flatten out the performance curve without lowering high-end torque too much. Anywhere between 14.0 and 14.5 is best for general driving, the performance difference is noticeable but the car will consume less fuel and parts may last longer. Any higher than 14.8 will reduce performance, although an A/F of ~16 may be considered most economical. The car must be at optimal temperature before adjusting the A/F ratio, as whilst the car is warming up the ratio will differ greatly. This optimal temperature is right in the middle of the engine temperature gauge, though we wary that driving full throttle will increase the temperature and thus change your A/F ratio. For more advanced performance tuning, this can be combined with a 950 PSI Nitrous Oxide injection and a very retarded distribution timing, allowing the car to reach peak performance with an A/F ratio of roughly 12. This will greatly reduce the longevity of engine parts, however, and therefore requires much more effort to maintain. Small changes in temperature can greatly affect this rich tuning and you will begin to see performance loss almost immediately outside of idle temperatures. :For tuning without the ratio gauge, see here. Racing carburettors In theory, these are tuned the same way as Stock and Twin carbs; read the above section first. There are now four screws to tune instead of one which is very difficult to balance initially. The easiest method of tuning is to screw all four tuning screw to their furthest position (you may need to hold the choke out) by turning each screw roughly 40 times either way. This will max out each limiter, making them all the same value. One may then begin tuning properly by making all adjustment equal on all four screws. Distributor The distributor is an easily missable opportunity to tune your car's performance. It is also one of the most frustrating components to tune, as you are given no easy indication of how well you have tuned it. The engine will produce a high chirping sound (different sound from bad rockers) if the distributor is too advanced or retarded, though once in between these two thresholds, there is no indication of current distributor timings. To adjust, loosen the screw and using the scroll wheel, move the distributor left and right, similar to the alternator. Be warned; leaving the distributor unscrewed while the engine is running will quickly reset it to the default un-tuned position, screw it back in when testing even if you are only leaving the bay for a few seconds. For general performance driving; the distributor should be as advanced as possible, as there is little downside to an advanced distributor regardless of other tuning parts (excluding N2O kit). Advance the distro untill the 'chirping' begins, then retard it by one or two clicks. For absolute Japanese 4-cylinder performance gains, enrich your Satsuma with Nitrous Oxide and retard your distributor by a large amount. Depending on the rest of your engine's tuning, you may even need to retard the distributor past the point at which chirping begins, leading to possible piston damage at non-optimum temperatures or idling. The reason for retarding your dist is due to the vast increase of pressure in the engine during enrichment (taking a N2O shot) which causes the pistons to 'pink', damaging your pistons and loosing performance. You should test your Satsuma by running boosted runs with the most advanced distribution timing possible where the engine does not "chirp" while boosting. Camshaft This is one of the most essential components that needs to be adjusted for the car to function properly. You will notice two little notches or marks cut into the gear and a component to the bottom right. These notches need to be aligned by using the scroll wheel on the gear bolt once it is properly fitted using the spanners. The only "optimum" setting is to have both notches facing each other; anything outside of this will result in a messy, uncoordinated engine. Rocker shaft A general guide on rocker shaft tuning can be found here. It is a laborious task but necessary to drive the car properly. Each cylinder has two rockers, an intake and exhaust rocker, making a total of eight tunable items which all should be very closely matched. One will hear a knocking sound if the rockers are miss-tuned, though there is no difference in sound between one or eight un-tuned rockers. To align all rockers to the same value, loosen each rocker by about 50 clicks, then begin tightening them. Start the car and tighten the rockers further until the knocking stops, this will result in very wide and quiet valves. Best performance can be found by having your valves as wide as possible, i.e., the rockers as high as possible as this increases the cylinder volume for combustion. In turn, this can be combined with an advanced distributor timing to have large, fast and accurate cylinder combustion. There is very little downside to not having your rockers as wide as possible, but those wanting maximum economy may see a slight decrease in fuel consumption by lowering the rockers slightly. You must remember this is a Japanese car and purposely lowering performance could be seen as a crime. Tachometer With our knowledge of the Satsuma, we can assume that adding more dials and gauges will increase performance. Though this has not been proven, it sure does look cooler. The racing tachometer will provide a visual gauge of Satsuma RPM and it has a gear light which can be adjusted to light up when you should change gear. This can be tuned to your personal driving tastes. A small knob labeled "shift adjust" can be found on the front right on the dial, altering this will change the RPM at which the light will power on. There is no visual guide on what the current RPM is set to, one will need hold the engine RPM where desired and tune the dial to come on just as it hits your preferred mark. For those yearning for absolute performance (!!), you will also need the Extra gauges, as this will bring the car closer to mid '90s Japanese max-attack stylings. Godzilla will look down upon you in favor, granting you an extra few mustache hairs and make all your 1/4 mile drag strips slightly downhill. Final gear ratio Fleetari Repair Shop has an option to change the Satsuma's final drive gear ratio. There are a total of 6 options, including the default. Considering a tire size of 152/80 R12, 8000 RPM in-game rev limit (with racing carburators and steel headters) and the gearing from a 1974 Datsun 100A as seen in the page here, the top speed in each gear and RPM drop after gear change can be seen in the charts below: Note: Negative speed means the car is moving backwards. Always come to a complete stop before engaging ®ace gear. Note: Early Access into downshifting might cause major engine failure. The maximum RPM you can downshift in a set gear is the RPM after the gear change. For example: If you want to downshift from 4th to 3rd, You must be at maximum 5525 RPM in 4th, otherwise pistons and main bearings will be found on the road. Be warned! The Rally enthusiast will prefer a lower gear ratio, as they will spend little time on straights, not enough time to reach the maximum speed and therefore prefer a faster acceleration to whatever speed they can hit. It's not long before that next "right 1 banked caution". Those who prefer highway driving, fuel economy or want to hit the fastest possible speed will perhaps be intrigued by the higher ratio drives; these allows them to hit incredible speeds even if it does take a while. N2O Kit The nitrous oxide kit is only for those wanting absolute performance and don't mind the huge increase in part wear and maintenance that come with it. The N2O kit is NOT for rallying or any other long-time driving styles unless you don't mind insane temperatures, terrible A/F ratio, having your pistons repaired often and the possibility of a broken engine block. Though some of this may be mitigated by boosting only in straights and when temperatures are looking good. Tuning is very simple. There is a valve on the N2O tank fitted inside the boot, this allows you to change the pressure (or amount) of injected gas sent while boosting. The generally agreed optimum is 950 PSI, coming from real-world values, though if one is willing to thoroughly test other values a better PSI may be found for your particular tuning (comments on this are very welcome). Boosting will drastically alter your A/F ratio, temperatures and required distributor timings. The following considerations should be taken into account: *The A/F should be set very rich (low) for maximum performance; air is being directly replaced by N2O while boosting *Running temperatures will greatly increase, thus lowing performance. Long-duration boosting is not good for performance or longevity *Distributor timings will need to be retarded greatly; if you hear "chirping" while boosting, your distributor is too advanced *Back pressure will increase; Steel headers, Racing exhaust and removal of the muffler is recommended to maximise the performance gain *Your parts will quicker, though tuning your engine to be "N2O ready" will aid this This guide is so far incomplete and wiki patrons are encouraged to improve this page with any advanced knowledge on tuning for performance/economy. '''Not all real-life performance recommendations apply to ''MSC so testing is advised before writing a huge section and realising it's bollocks.''' Category:Vehicles Category:Car parts Category:Guide